On September 12, World Business Academy Founder Rinaldo Brutoco and Executive Director Rick Wayman attended the 30th anniversary celebration of the Pachamama Alliance in San Francisco. Co-founded by Lynne Twist, a longtime Academy Fellow, the organization has spent three decades bridging Indigenous wisdom and modern advocacy to defend the sacred headwaters of the Amazon.
What began as a partnership with the Achuar people of Ecuador has grown into a powerful coalition with Indigenous communities across the region. Together, they have successfully defended millions of acres of primary rainforest, which they call the lungs and heart of Planet Earth, from fossil fuel extraction, mining, and industrial cattle ranching.
Working alongside frontline groups such as Fundación Pachamama, the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, they helped achieve the landmark inclusion of the Rights of Nature in Ecuador’s Constitution. As Natalia Greene, Global Director of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, put it: “The Amazon is not a resource. It is a source of life.”
Just as crucially, the Pachamama Alliance takes that mandate to the global stage, challenging industrialized nations to shift the extractive mindset driving planetary destruction. As Bill Twist, co-founder of Pachamama Alliance, says: “We’re working to change the dream of the modern world that’s at the heart of the destruction of the planet.”
We are honored to count Lynne Twist among our Academy Fellows, and we extend our heartfelt congratulations to Lynne and the entire Pachamama Alliance team for 30 years of courage, partnership, and visionary stewardship.